[tooth] 
,noun, plural teeth, verb, toothed [tootht, tooth
d] , tooth⋅ing [too-thing, -thing] .| 1. | (in most vertebrates) one of the hard bodies or processes usually attached in a row to each jaw, serving for the prehension and mastication of food, as weapons of attack or defense, etc., and in mammals typically composed chiefly of dentin surrounding a sensitive pulp and covered on the crown with enamel. |
| 2. | (in invertebrates) any of various similar or analogous processes occurring in the mouth or alimentary canal, or on a shell. |
| 3. | any projection resembling or suggesting a tooth. |
| 4. | one of the projections of a comb, rake, saw, etc. |
| 5. | Machinery.
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| 6. | Botany.
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| 7. | a sharp, distressing, or destructive attribute or agency. |
| 8. | taste, relish, or liking. |
| 9. | a surface, as on a grinding wheel or sharpening stone, slightly roughened so as to increase friction with another part. |
| 10. | a rough surface created on a paper made for charcoal drawing, watercolor, or the like, or on canvas for oil painting. |
| 11. | to furnish with teeth. |
| 12. | to cut teeth upon. |
| 13. | to interlock, as cogwheels. |
| 14. | by the skin of one's teeth, barely: He got away by the skin of his teeth. |
| 15. | cast or throw in someone's teeth, to reproach someone for (an action): History will ever throw this blunder in his teeth. |
| 16. | cut one's teeth on, to do at the beginning of one's education, career, etc., or in one's youth: The hunter boasted of having cut his teeth on tigers. |
| 17. | in the teeth of,
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| 18. | long in the tooth, old; elderly. |
| 19. | put teeth in or into, to establish or increase the effectiveness of: to put teeth into the law. |
| 20. | set one's teeth, to become resolute; prepare for difficulty: He set his teeth and separated the combatants. |
| 21. | set or put one's teeth on edge,
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| 22. | show one's teeth, to become hostile or threatening; exhibit anger: Usually friendly, she suddenly began to show her teeth. |
| 23. | to the teeth, entirely; fully: armed to the teeth; dressed to the teeth in furs. |
n), Skt dántaSomething that one finds intensely irritating may be said to “set one's teeth on edge”: “The mayor's sexist remark set my teeth on edge.”
A hard structure, embedded in the jaws of the mouth, that functions in chewing. The tooth consists of a crown, covered with hard white enamel; a root, which anchors the tooth to the jawbone; and a “neck” between the crown and the root, covered by the gum. Most of the tooth is made up of dentin, which is located directly below the enamel. The soft interior of the tooth, the pulp, contains nerves and blood vessels. Humans have molars for grinding food, incisors for cutting, and canines and bicuspids for tearing.
tooth (t&oomacr;th)
n. pl. teeth (tēth)
One of a set of hard, bonelike structures rooted in sockets in the jaws of vertebrates, typically composed of a core of soft pulp surrounded by a layer of hard dentin that is coated with cement or enamel at the crown and used chiefly for biting or chewing food or as a means of attack or defense.
tooth (t th) Pronunciation Key
(click for larger image in new window) Plural teeth (tēth)
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set one's teeth on edge
Irritate, annoy, make one cringe, as in That raucous laugh sets my teeth on edge. This expression alludes to the shuddering feeling evoked by a grating noise or similar irritation. It appears in several books of the Bible and was also used by Shakespeare. [c. 1600]